Removable Media

Notice: The information on this archived page is quite dated and not regularly maintained. Information is preserved for those running older OS/2 systems and for historical reference.

Removable Media Under OS/2 | General Removable Media Issues

Removable Media Under OS/2

A Note About eComStation

There is considerable support built into eComStation for these devices. The information on this page will be primarily of interest to those still running OS/2 Warp 3 and 4.

The number and various forms of removable media available to the consumer has increased significantly over the last few years. There are several formats that are vying for the honour of being the replacement for the floppy disk as the standard rewritable standard. This list includes the Iomega Zip and Jaz drives, the SuperDisk LS-120 and rewritable CDs to name just a few of them.

The ability to format removable media in HPFS and to create multiple partitions on such larger disks such as the Iomega Jaz cartridges is included beginning with Fixpak M6 for Warp 4 and Fixpak 26 for Warp 3 to include all the more recent fixpaks. If you don't want to install one of these fixpaks for any reason you will find some drivers at the sites below to do the job. Check the Fixpaks Page for more information on downloading and installing OS/2 fixpaks.

daniadsk, a replacement for IBM's ATAPI driver (IBMATAPI) features support for ZIP-250. Version 0.2.3 has been released by Daniela Engert (12/19/99). Search the Hobbes OS/2 Archive for dania.

Floppy Diskette Drives
  -  Inter-Cable Systems iFloppy-USB 1.44 MB Floppy Diskette Drive
  -  Newer Technology uDrive External USB 1.44 MB Floppy Diskette Drive
  -  VST Technologies VST USB 1.44 MB Floppy Diskette Drive
LS120 Drives
- Imation SuperDisk USB 120 MB Drive
- Winstation USB Super Disk 120 MB External Drive
ZIP Drives
- Iomega 100 MB External USB Zip Drive
Castlewood ORB
- 2.2 GB Removable Drive.
- Apparently some have had no luck in getting this drive to work with drivers available to them although support was indicated at one point.

The OS.2 eZine article on ORB for OS/2 gives some insight to using this Castlewood removable drive with OS/2.
Running Multiple Operating Systems might help if you are having difficulties with removable media while using more than just OS/2 on one computer. (I happen to run five OSs, although OS/2 is my main environment). I found that I needed to make sure the Zip or Jaz cartridge for the specific operating system was in the drive to avoid problems. Before the ability to format the media with HPFS I found that Win9x was particularly bad at corrupting the EAs on my removable OS/2 files. One note: Win9x will offer to format any media that it cannot read, so be doubly sure that you haven't left an OS/2 HPFS-formatted cartridge in the drive when you can't read it under Windows.

General Removable Media Issues

Iomega Click of Death is a recognized problem for Iomega Zip and Jaz drives. This page deals with the issue. There is a utility that will test your drive under Win9x only. Note: once the Click of Death destroys data it probably is unrecoverable.

Return to top

Return to Archived OS/2 Resources index